


High School Bullies and Life-Altering Moments

by livingtheobsessedlife



Category: Castle
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Bullying, Oneshot, castle - Freeform, season 1 episode 6
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-12
Updated: 2016-06-12
Packaged: 2018-07-14 13:42:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7174112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/livingtheobsessedlife/pseuds/livingtheobsessedlife
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is an AU that takes place during season 1 episode 6 of Castle when the team at the twelfth precinct first meet Castle's ex-wife Meredith. Now, what would have happened if, say, it turned out that Meredith had been that one merciless person in Kate's life that had made her high school career absolutely miserable, had bullied her senseless? And what would happen when the two enemies meet once again much later in life? Well, this here is a little oneshot depicting exactly that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	High School Bullies and Life-Altering Moments

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Kate finds out that Meredith is the person who used to bully her in high school

Kate stared on at the redhead in front of her, feeling a rage of disgust threaten to vomit from her mouth. She couldn’t believe it. How had Castle ever married her? And she was Alexis’s mother? Sweet, darling Alexis had been born from her? It couldn’t have been possible.

The detective turned toward the writer, a snarl sketched across her face, “You were married to her? Her?” She asked almost accusingly, as if everything was his fault, even though he still was not quite sure why being married to Meredith was such a big deal in Beckett’s mind. 

“Um… yes?” It came out hesitantly, as a question. After all, when she was angry, he seriously feared what she would do to him. And now, even more than ever before she seemed really angry, seriously angry, “angry as a rhinoceros that got his foot stepped on” angry. She was angry, but he had not quite figure out why yet. 

Kate growled in anger, in disgust, and stomped off to the opposite side of the room. It was the kind of anger where you were not quite sure what to do with yourself, whether to fold your arms up or let them fall down to your sides, whether to coil yourself up in a ball and ignore everybody or to explode and yell at the people around you. The anger that consumed her was the confusing, blood-lust anger, that filled whatever space it desired within seconds, and it blinded everything in her path with a red rage. 

“Kate…” Castle trailed off softly, not quite sure what to say as he looked down at her fragile figure curled up angrily in her desk chair, “Why are you angry? What is going on?”

The detective glared at the writer as if he should have know exactly what was happening, that he was a moron for having to ask (even though it was actually a fair question, circumstances considering). She stood from her swivel chair, one arm crossing her body and clutching onto her opposite hip, and the other pointing vindictively at Castle.

“You want to know what’s wrong, Castle?” She said, spitting each word out like a venomous poison splattering onto his skin, “That woman, Meredith, she is evil and manipulative and an awful person and I never would have expected you to be at a point where you had stooped so low as to marry her.”

Kate was out of breath now, an irrational rage devouring every crack and pore of her being.

Castle had thought that he had seen her mad before, but nothing could ever compare to this. The strong-willed woman was pissed, enraged, and there was no stopping the infuriated momentum that she had rolling.

“Hey,” Castle defended honorably, “That’s my ex-wife you’re talking about. She may be annoying at times and not always the most considerate of people, but I would never call her evil. Plus, she was a very important part of my life. She is the mother of my daughter, for Christ’s sake!”

Meredith took a confident step toward Kate, a fake serene smile spread across her lips, a secret slyness hiding in the shadows of her peaceful words, “Now, now, Detective, I think things are getting a little out of hand. What if we all just sit down and talk it out? There’s no need to make this such a…” She looked Kate up and down, her smirk becoming more evident, “mess.”

The detective glared at the redhead in disbelief. Every single word that had slid from her mouth was contradicting the cunning expression slicked onto her face. Kate could not take the gleaming look anymore, she could not just stand and benignly stare at the belligerent features of Castle’s ex-wife for much longer.

Suddenly, Kate’s hand flew through the air, striking Meredith’s face with a booming smack. The room around them immediately became silent as not a single person in the room dared to say anything. The tension in the air was as taut as a rope pulled tightly across a vast canyon, soaring above miles and miles of dangerous rock, ready at any moment to pierce rocking flesh. Not helping, the air was dense and expectant, and everybody watched on in impatience. 

Castle stood off to the side, a terrified surprise pasted across his features. All the oxygen and all the breath was sucked from the room, and for a moment it seemed as if Kate had regained her typical calm confidence, before everything returned in heated fast-forward.

“What the hell was that, Beckett?” Castle barked at his muse, marching over to his ex-wife who clutched onto her own face in pain. He wrapped an arm around her shoulder, making sure the woman was okay. 

Kate scoffed at the sight of the “happy couple”, disgusted and completely over everything the resembled. She stood up straight, deciding that she was no longer going to deal with Castle’s crap or Meredith’s sight.

“You want to know what that was?” She said, her tone slicing through the precinct’s silence like a sharp knife, “Well, that was me getting back at the woman who made my entire high school years a living hell. So, Castle, now I want to thank you for this wonderful experience, but I must ask you to leave my precinct right this second, as you are no longer going to be shadowing me. Thank you very much.” She gestured to the elevator as if everything they had been doing for the past months meant absolutely nothing to her, as if none of it had ever happened, and in her mind it honestly had not anymore. Her fake politeness staggered through the room like a drunk trying to find his way through a maze, thick and confused while it covered every inch of space. 

Castle stared at Beckett in shock, disbelief stretched across his face, “Oh, come on-” He started

“No.” The detective’s voice was sharp and definite, unyielding toward the writer’s mistake, refusing to forgive. She could not take Meredith’s presence anymore, and she pointed to the exit. The deep browns of her pupils flared and sparked, symbolizing the angry fire that rest alive in her, but a sadness flushed the valleys of her eyes as watery tears threatened to burst from the dam, “Go.” Her voice was harsh, but a saddened crack was hidden, hiding beneath the surface of her throat, “Now.”

His eyes pleaded with her’s, but all she did was glare back at him. Just like that, she was done with him. 

Castle left with his head down, hoping that maybe one day he would be accepted back to Detective Kate Beckett’s precinct. Meredith trailed behind him, not a care in the world reflecting across her serene expression, as if everything that she had just destroyed was not because of her. Kate could have been mad that the redhead was so okay with all of it, but she could not care less.

As Castle’s finger reached out and pushed the elevator button, Kate walked away and continued with her life. Meredith’s presence in her life had always been that of a nuisance, of an enemy, and she did not need that, not now, not as an addition to all the pain that felt so alive in her heart and her mind and her life at the moment. She did not need it, so she turned around and forgot about all of it. She completely forgot about the woman that had once relentlessly bullied her in high school and the kind man that had once long ago made the life-altering mistake of marrying such a woman. 

She walked away, and did not look back as the elevator doors closed shut behind the writer and the mother of his daughter. 

Nobody knew what would have happened if Meredith and Kate had not been on such bad terms. Nothing, right? It could not have been such a loss? Well, if only the knew.


End file.
